“A man with one theory is lost. He must have several, four, many! " —Bertold Brecht

Chopin on Fortepiano

March 10, 2010 at 12:20 PM

I picked up Edna Stern’s new Chopin CD from eMusic yesterday and was listening to it at work. I can’t wait to get it home to give it a close listen. I have never heard Chopin performed on a fortepiano before. Chopin is so often used to display the range of color available on the modern piano that it never occurred to me that he would have originally written for the fortepiano. It’s a wonderful sound and very different from what I am used to hearing. I suspect that playing his music on this instrument must require a very different approach to the music than one would use on a modern piano.

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One Response to “Chopin on Fortepiano”

I believe it is the musician’s dearest wish to get as close as possible to the composer’s ideas. To know the rules of each composer (i.e. Chopin’s use of rubato or Bach’s continuo function and ideas on polyphony) is important in order to interpret them. Some interpreters also use a similar instrument to the one the composer had. The instrument on which I recorded is a Pleyel from 1842, of the kind that Chopin had at home, and it is certainly different than what we are used to hear.

P.S. Thanks Jim, you must have been one of the first ones to get my Chopin:-)